The Picture of Dorian Grey

Basil Hallward paints a portrait of the young and beautiful Dorian Gray. Admiring his image, the young man expresses a desire for the portrait to grow old, and he always stayed young. Then he accidentally meets Basil's friend, Lord Henry Watton - a sarcastic hedonist who despises traditional Victorian values , and falls under the influence of his vicious ideas. Dorian falls in love with the actress , the young beauty Sybil Wayne, but after the failure of the play to which he invited Lord Henry and Basil, he rudely rejects her, because of which she commits suicide.

Sybil’s brother, the sailor James Wayne, swears revenge, and Dorian notices that after this incident, the face of the portrait was distorted by an evil smile, and realizes that his desire for a “aging portrait instead of him” came true. Succumbing to the evil influence of Henry, Dorian is becoming more and more vicious and depraved, which is reflected in the portrait, but he himself remains youthful and still good-looking.

A few years later, the artist is trying to find out if the terrible rumors that go about Dorian are true, after which the latter shows Basil a portrait, and then kills him, since he considers him guilty of his moral downfall. After the murder, obsessive fears begin to haunt him, which only intensify after a chance meeting in an opium brothel with James Wayne, who wants to avenge the death of his sister.

Dorian manages to get away from Wayne, convincing him that he confused him with someone else - because he still looks young, as he did 18 years ago. However, Wayne quickly realizes his mistake and again begins to look for it, but dies, being accidentally shot during a hunt.

Despite the danger that passed, Dorian could not find peace and decided that he would do good now. Having done, in his opinion, a good deed - letting go of a peasant girl who has fallen in love with him, without dishonoring her, he goes to the portrait, hoping that he has become better, but looking at him, he understands that only vanity directs his thoughts. Based on the desire to destroy the only witness to his sins, Dorian sticks a knife into the portrait, after which he dies.

The servants find an untouched portrait depicting a beautiful young man, and next to him is a repulsive old man who plunged a knife into his chest. In the old man “ only by the rings on his hands ” they recognize Dorian Gray.

• Dorian Gray is a young man endowed with incredible beauty. “ He has already passed 20 years ” ^[3] . Falling under the influence of the ideas of new hedonism preached by Lord Henry, he devotes his life to a thirst for pleasure and vice. It combines a subtle aesthetic, even a romantic and a vicious lecher, capable of crime. These two opposite sides of his character are in constant struggle with each other. This duality of the hero is characteristic of many Gothic novels .
• Basil Hallward is an artist who painted a portrait of Dorian Gray. He is distinguished by extreme affection for Dorian Gray, in which he sees the ideal of beauty and man. Doomed to die by his hand, the artist is the loser guardian angel Dorian. With the death of Basil and Dorian Gray, he becomes defenseless.
• Lord Henry Watton is an aristocrat, a preacher of the ideas of new hedonism , the “Prince of Paradoxes”. His paradoxical, contradictory thinking, pouring caustic aphorisms , is permeated with criticism of the whole Victorian English society . Acts as a kind of Mephistopheles for Dorian Gray.
• Sibila Wayne - actress, "a girl of about seventeen " ^[4] . Before meeting with Dorian, she lived in her fictional world, the world of theater, and was a talented actress. Flushed love showed her all the artificiality of her world, where she did not live, but only played. With the first vivid feeling in the soul of Sybil, acting talent abruptly disappears, as she tries to break out of the world of illusions into the world of real passion. Dorian’s disappointment at the performance leads her to sudden suicide .
• James Wayne , Sybil’s brother a year younger than her, wants to go sailor to Australia ^[5] . James is a stern and rude, poorly dressed young man of military dressing, jealous of the exalted and in love with Sybil to the wealthy aristocrat Dorian Gray, who is unpleasant to him. After his sister's suicide, James lost the meaning of life and only lives on a desire for revenge.

In the genre of "Portrait of Dorian Gray" - this is conte philosophique ^{[6] [7]} , an intellectual-allegorical novel, so popular in the Enlightenment , but written from the standpoint of decadence of the end of the century . In Dorian Gray, the protagonist of the novel, the features of the new Faust are guessed. In the role of Mephistopheles, Lord Henry acts, it is he who throughout the novel seduces Dorian Gray with the ideas of new hedonism , turns an innocent and talented young man into a vicious monster. The role of Margarita falls Sybil Wayne, the new Valentine - James Wayne. As you know, Faust also received eternal youth from Mephistopheles.

The main source of inspiration for Wilde was apparently Balzac 's allegorical novel " Shagreen Skin " ^[8] . The decadent spirit of the work goes back to Guismans's fashionable novel, “ On the contrary ” (1884). This is probably the book that Lord Henry gives to Dorian ^{[9] [10] [11] [12]} . The gothic novel “ Melmoth the Wanderer ” was known to Wilde since childhood, since its author, Charles Robert Metyurin , was his cousin. It is to Melmot that the idea of ​​a mysterious portrait, the prototype of which does not grow old, and partly a hero who can afford everything ^{[13] [14]} , also dates back.

The novel was written in just three weeks. First published in July 1890 in the American Lippincott's Monthly Magazine . In April 1891, published in London as a separate book, supplemented by a special preface, which became a manifesto of aesthetics , as well as six new chapters within the main narrative. Some chapters in the second version are completely revised ^[2] .

After the publication of the novel, a scandal erupted in society. The literary establishment condemned him as an immoral work, and some critics demanded that he be banned, and that the author of the novel should be subjected to judicial punishment. Wilde was accused of insulting public morality. However, by ordinary readers, the novel was enthusiastically received.

According to F.S. Fitzgerald , this novel “in general, is only a slightly sublime tale that has been useful to teens of about seventeen because it encourages them to seriously think about something” and in which Balzac ’s Shagreen Skin and “ On the contrary ” Huysmans ^[15] .

According to the observation of Ekaterina Genieva , in Wilde’s aesthetic prose “the living principle disappeared, his mannerism and pretentiousness killed him”, hence the characteristic feature of the novel “an overabundance of description of expensive fabrics, rare trinkets, exotic flowers” ^[1] .

In the novel, not one of the vices of the protagonist is clearly named, except for the murder of the artist and abuse of opium . Wilde himself said that everyone sees in his hero his own sins and vices:

• 1906 - translation by Anna Mintslova (Moscow, Book publishing house "Vulture").
• 1909 - translation of Mikhail Likiardopulo under the pseudonym M. Richards for collected works, published as an appendix to the Niva magazine in the book publishing house of A. F. Marx, edited by Korney Chukovsky . The collection was reprinted in 1914 . A separate edition of the novel was reprinted in 1928 .
• 1960 - translation of Maria Abkina for the two-volume “Selected Works” (State Publishing House of Fiction). It has become a textbook and is still being reprinted.
• 1999 - Valery Chukhno translation for Eksmo Publishing House.
• 2010 - translation of Anastasia Gryzunova and Maxim Nemtsov for Eksmo publishing house.

• The modern British writer Will Self proposed in his novel "Dorian" ( Dorian , 1992) a semi-parody version of the story of Dorian Gray. The duration of the Selfie book is the 80s of the XX century .
• The novel was repeatedly staged, musicals based on his motives were created and staged. In 2010, at the Moscow Theater of Music and Drama, Stas Namin , the premiere of the musical “Portrait of Dorian Gray” took place. It is a Russian version of the play “Dorian the Remarkable Mister Gray: A Portrait in Music” by the American composer and director Randy Bowser. The director of the Russian version of the musical is Roman Mikheenkov ^{[16] [17]} .
• In 2013, at the Moscow Drama Theater. M.N. Ermolova premiered the play "Portrait of Dorian Gray." Director Alexander Sozonov. In the role of Lord Henry, the artistic director of the theater Oleg Menshikov.
• In 2017, at the St. Petersburg Music Hall Theater, the premiere of the musical Portrait of Dorian Gray by the Russian composer Vladimir Baskin, the libretto by Eduard Gaidai and Natalya Indeykina, the director of the production was Natalya Indeykina, and the music director Fabio Mastrangelo was premiered.

• Dorian Gray Syndrome (cult of youth, fear of physical wilting and aging)

• Portrait of Dorian Gray in the library of Maxim Moshkov
•   Related Texts Portrait of Dorian Gray in Wikisource